Mercenary
by Rethira
Summary: He is a king with no people.


This is not me pimping out the Magvel LiveJournal community, home to all your Magvellian needs. This is also not me saying that Ephraim is awesome and just because he's not good for pairings doesn't mean he shouldn't get written.

I wrote this for a challenge in the Magvel comm. The prompt was 'Royalty'.

Warnings: AU, character death.

Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem or any characters therein. I make no money from any fanfiction.

* * *

He is a prince. His hair is short and scruffy. His skin is unscarred and he is handsome. He wears armour; it is good armour, but fancy and has gilt edging. His clothes are all made of the softest material. He doesn't consider himself spoilt, but he knows sort of is. He may be a prince, but his father has never forced him to return to his studies and his father never makes him stay awake during meetings of state. If Ephraim asks to go and train, he is allowed to. Eirika stays inside and learns all the things she'll need to if she wants to rule, and she's also learning swordplay. She'll make a good queen one day, at least that's what Ephraim thinks. She'll be a better queen than he'd ever be a king. He just wants to go out and fight. He wants to be a mercenary. The thought of being free to do what you want and not have people breathing down your neck seems like heaven to Ephraim.

He's not going to leave though. He knows he has responsibilities and Ephraim can't just drop them. He just doesn't want to be a king. He talks about it with Kyle and Forde sometimes and they don't really agree, but they're sympathetic. More sympathetic than anyone else is. His father knows, but he can't let Ephraim go. He wouldn't want to. Ephraim doesn't want to leave his family behind either, but some days the call of the world beyond Renais is so strong that Ephraim wishes he could just leave. He tries to talk to Lyon and Innes about it, but Lyon is so devoted to Grado and the people that he can't understand and Innes just wants to be the best prince there ever was. No-one understands him and it makes Ephraim feel... well, he just doesn't like it.

He remains a prince. But then, Grado invades Renais and Frelia and Fado is killed. Suddenly, all Ephraim has is Eirika and a handful of knights. So he chooses the only option open to them; they will become the mercenaries he has always wanted to be.

* * *

He is a mercenary. His blue hair has grown long and he has to tie it back. His face is scarred. His clothes are worn and comfortable, and his armour is well built but cheap. He leads his company and if anyone wonders why his company consists of him, four knights and a pretty blue haired girl they never ask. Ephraim is a good fighter. He likes fighting. Forde and Kyle do too, to some extent. Franz and Seth less so, but most of the jobs Ephraim takes don't require too many people to take to the field. Eirika can use a sword a bit, but she's nowhere near Ephraim's class and usually hangs back to mop up the dregs. Seth sticks close by her. Ephraim doesn't begrudge him that. In these times of war, everyone needs all the comfort they can get and he's happy that Eirika and Seth are happy. He can't get that kind of happiness anymore, so seeing his sister smile is the only joy Ephraim can get.

They're not a well known company, and Ephraim keeps it that way. They only take the most minor of jobs, but they do enough of them to still have money for weapons and armour and food. They never hang around either. They take a job and they do it and then they leave. So far no-one has discovered their true identities. No-one has questioned them too hard. No-one has commented that blue haired Erina looks surprisingly similar to blue haired Eirika, or that Sety looked awfully similar to the Silver Knight, Seth. Ephraim hopes to keep it that way. The last thing they needed was for the Empire's soldiers to find out that they'd survived the fall of Renais. They'd been lucky so far, but that could change at any minute. Questions were the enemy.

Ephraim knew Eirika hated living like this. She hadn't been a spoilt princess, not by any means, but she didn't like living in constant fear of discovery. She didn't like scraping a living through killing deserters or fugitives or bandits. She didn't like wandering Magvel and doing _nothing_ to help the people. But they had no choice. Renais was all but destroyed, Frelia was on its last legs and only Rausten and Jehanna were still able to withstand the might of the Empire. And that was only because of Jehanna's desert. There wasn't anything two royals and a handful of knights from a ruined country could do, except try to get by and keep on surviving. And if surviving meant throwing away his royalty, then Ephraim would do it without a second thought. Prince-hood had been a burden Ephraim was unwilling to carry and he could drop it now, become a no-name mercenary and be free of the responsibility, free of the person he was before.

Eirika was different. Ephraim had half a mind to send her and Seth off to Rausten, or somewhere safe enough, to be the princess again, but... They would never leave each other. That had been their promise when their father had died. Never again would they lose each other. So Eirika would stay because she loved him and he would be a mercenary because he loved her. They would fight to live. They would not fall to their once-friend, now-enemy. They would survive because they had no choice. Even though rumour had it that Hayden and Innes had been executed and Tana imprisoned. Even though it was said that gentle Prince Lyon was desperately searching for the lost twins of Renais. Ephraim would keep Eirika alive, because she was all he had left and she was the only thing he would never give up.

* * *

He is a mercenary. His hair is long and has to be tied back. His face is scarred from battle and his left shoulder is stiff from an old injury. He has a scar on his thigh from an arrow and he's too skinny. He talks with an odd parlance, words from court scattered amongst words from taverns. He has four knights with him wherever he goes, two in green, one in red and one in silver. He has a sister. She's cut her hair off, chopped and hacked at it with her sword, and she wears light and cheap armour. Sometimes she limps from a badly healed leg and sometimes her sword arm fails her. If you look closely, you can see a faded scar above her right eye. She almost lost her eye that day. She's skinny too and her skin, while clear, is also lightly tanned from days under the sun.

Their knights are little better. The youngest, a blond boy with a too young face, looks wearied for all his youth. The other blond still smiles sometimes, but his smile never quite reaches his eyes. The green haired one looks too severe for his age; too serious and pained. The silver knight too looks broken and tired. None of them are the people they were once, and they never shall be again. They are battle worn and battered by time.

Emperor Lyon doesn't recognise them as they walk past him. The blue hair catches his eyes for a moment, but he has long thought his Ephraim and Eirika dead, and there is too little of the children he once knew in their faces. To Lyon, they are simply a group of mercenaries, hired to supplement his numbers. He doesn't even know their names. They are lost in the multitude before long, and the blue haired mercenary briefly embraces his sister – he calls her Erina and she calls him Efrain – and then they move on. Always, they move on. And when the battle is over, no-one notices that five of them wait in the forest, while their sixth collects their pay. No-one notices and no-one cares as the six of them flee, leaving the battle and the war behind them.

They do not look back.

* * *

He is a king with no people. This is how he will die. His face is scarred and his hair, once long and annoying, has been hacked off so the spectators can see his face. Lyon, old and tired and changed, sits on a throne. All Efrain can think of is Erina, fleeing with Sety and the others. He is glad. She will live. She will have a life to live. He hopes she understands. He hopes she goes to a safe place and he hopes that she will forgive him.

"Where is it?" Lyon asks, except it's not really Lyon. Efrain laughs, his voice rough and scratchy.

"We threw them away. Years ago. Into different bogs," Efrain tells him and it's the truth, sarcastic as it may sound. Those bracelets had been too obvious, and even knowing what they were didn't mean they should keep them. Sety had agreed.

"You lie!" Lyon yells, and Efrain knows it's not Lyon. Lyon would have known that Efrain wouldn't lie about this. But if it was Lyon, then this whole thing never would have started.

Lyon screeches, an inhuman voice escaping his throat, and Efrain feels the drain and the tug and he knows that death is coming to him. He whispers sorry to Erina, as the darkness envelops him, and then Efrain the mercenary, who was once Ephraim the prince, is dead on the floor.

* * *

He is dead. But he is never forgotten. Erina has a son. She calls him Ephraim.

* * *

Thanks for reading.

_Rethira_


End file.
